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Trivia / Pokémon Black and White

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  • Ascended Fan Nickname: The term "Shiny Pokémon" had been used by the fandom for years before finally becoming official here. An NPC in Nimbasa City uses it when telling the player that they sparkle when encountered.
  • Blooper: When first encountered on Route 7 before it begins roaming around Unova, Tornadus in Black uses the cry of its White-exclusive counterpart, Thundurus.
  • Content Leak:
    • Shoko Nakagawa accidentally revealed Zekrom's type in May 2010 while she was gushing about Electric being her favorite type on her blog.
    • The starter evolutions were leaked several times prior to the game's release - one such incident in early September 2010 resulted in a man being arrested for leaking that month's issue of Corocoro more than two weeks in advance of its intended release.
  • Dummied Out:
    • Several Pokémon were programmed with Hidden Abilities that were ultimately not available through legitimate means. While some were obtainable in later generations and events, there were a few that were not:
      • The Legendary Birds were given Hidden Abilities, but they were unavailable to players until February of 2016. This doesn't stop the AI from using them in the Battle facilities. Notable in this regard is Zapdos' Hidden Ability of Lightning Rod; not only was Zapdos unobtainable with this Ability in Gen V, but from Gen VI onwards, it was changed to Static.
      • The Johto starters had data for their Hidden Abilities, but they wouldn't be accessible to players until Gen VI.
      • The Legendary Beasts were given Hidden Abilities, but up until the Virtual Console releases of the Generation II games, there was no way to obtain them legitimately. Even so, Pokémon Sun and Moon changed them to Inner Focus from Volt Absorb, Flash Fire, and Water Absorb.
      • The Regi trio were all given Hidden Abilities, but they cannot be obtained by the player. A Global Link event did make them available for Gen VI games, however.
      • Litwick and its evolutions had the Hidden Ability Shadow Tag. Due to the limited availability of Hidden Abilities and the fact that this one was never released, the only way to get a Chandelure with Shadow Tag was by hacking. It can't be transferred to Gen VI through Pokémon Bank, as it's no longer considered a legal ability.
    • Generation V was the first generation to have "Shiny-locked Pokémon", mostly to avoid discrepancies with the overworld sprites and in-game cutscenes for the legendaries. However, these Pokémon still have shiny sprites within the game's data to prevent the game from crashing while attempting to load a non-existent sprite:
      • Even though Victini has a Shiny palette, the one in Liberty Garden is locked into always being its default colors. As a Mythical Pokémon, all subsequent Victini have been direct downloads, none of which have used the Shiny skin — meaning Victini is one of a few Pokémon that can't legitimately be Shiny.
      • Keldeo has Shiny colors, but so far, it is only available through direct downloads — none of which have allowed it to be Shiny.
      • Reshiram and Zekrom both have Shiny sprites, but they're both hard-coded to never use them, and no legal method of getting them within those games ever existed. Starting with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, though, their Shiny colours can appear.
      • Meloetta has a Shiny skin, but it can't be legitimately obtained as of 2023, since every Meloetta event to date has used its regular colors.
    • Freeze Shock and Ice Burn, both reserved for Kyurem in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, are in the game's data despite no Pokémon being able to learn them, possibly to avoid compatibility issues.
    • Within the game's data is the God Stone; a grey stone similar to the Light and Dark Stones, and presumably a sealed Kyurem. Unlike Freeze Shock and Ice Burn, however, this wasn't used for the sequels.
  • God Never Said That: Pokémon Sunday reported that "No old characters like Oak will appear", which mutated and really got confusing when some Gen IV characters showed up in the games.
  • Incidental Multilingual Wordplay: Surprisingly, "Enbuoh" is unrelated to "Emboar", despite sounding similar and possessing a similar etymology.
  • Urban Legend of Zelda:
    • Early on, rumors of a supposed "Swimming Goggles" item that raised the user's Special Attack and accuracy whle also putting non-Water-types to sleep circulated. However, no such item exists, Dummied Out or otherwise.
    • Dataminers initially believed that Bianca was the Champion, when this isn't the case. (Presumably, her post-League team was misinterpreted as a Champion team.)
    • With Victini, Reshiram, and Zekrom being the first Pokémon to be hard-coded into never being Shiny, many rumors on how to get them to appear as such — fueled by the existence of Shiny sprites for all three in the data — circulated. However, outside of hacking, it's impossible to get them (in the Gen V games, anyway).
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Originally, Frillish and Jellicent were supposed to be a pure Water-type line, but were changed to Water/Ghost (a type combination that hadn't been used prior to Generation V) for the sake of distribution. This resulted in their creator (a new artist working at Game Freak) being disappointed with the scary aspects (such as causing ships that cross its habitat to be sunken and all of the passengers on board to end up missing) being added to what was supposed to just be some normal jellyfish based on princes and princesses.
    • Stunfisk was also supposed to be a Electric/Water-type and be based more on a goosefish. This was changed for the sake of type distribution.
    • Deino, Zweilous, and Hydreigon were originally intended to be cybernetic dragons incorporating aspects of tanks within their bodies. The track-like markings on their bellies seem to be a remnant of this.
    • Concept art shows the cube N wears on his belt as some kind of sliding puzzle that would have revealed a keyhole inside when solved, but the cube has no relevance in the final game.
    • It was revealed in an interview that the Pokémon Professor was originally going to be a middle-aged man with a much older father.
    • Apparently, one of Alder's tentative designs resembled Jesus.
    • Similarly, an early design for Marshal wore a hood of some sort.
    • Translated interviews with Ken Sugimori revealed a few interesting notes about the development of Gen V's Pokémon designs:
      • Tornadus was going to be red to contrast with Thundurus's blue, but that was changed because that made them too similar to Sawk and Throh. Sawk and Throh were also going to be based on onis, but their horns were removed to help differentiate them.
      • There was an early concept for an ant Pokémon that would've also been the world's smallest Pokémon. The concept was set aside when the development team made Durant a counterpart to Heatmor.
      • Petilil and Liligant were going to be part of a three-stage evolutionary line, but this was changed to two because there already too many Grass-types in the game.
      • The Dwebble line were going to have their shells made out of pottery and be known as "Furnace Pokémon".
      • The original concept for the Litwick line was to have a flame Pokémon evolve into a candle and then a lamp. The development team found it hard to justify the transition from flame to candle, so the candle became the first stage of the evolutionary line.
    • N's character design was initially a lot more horrifying than his final Bishōnen look. See for yourself.
    • Corocoro hinted that Zorua would evolve into Zoroark by a different evolution method. In the final game and all mainline sequels, Zorua merely evolves by the standard level-up.
    • According to Ken Sugimori in an interview, Oshawott's Japanese name was originally going to be ラッコマル Rakkomaru, instead of ミジュマル Mijumaru in the final release. The unused name may be a combination of ラッコ rakko (sea otter) and 丸 maru (round).

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